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Kodiqi

Feedback comments for LD40

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Kodiqi's comment
Dec 6 03:36:02		Asteroid Crasher	♥ 1	That core mechanic of this is fun and a good fit for the theme. I liked the variation through the levels as well. A restart level button would be a welcome addition. A UI indicator of what you require for the level you're in would also be handy. I didn't find myself needing to rotate very often, so maybe the levels could change direction, or the space gate be at an unusual angle, to force this.
Dec 6 03:50:41	14m 39s	MOAR ENGINES	♥ 1	Best sounds, maybe ever. I grinned every time it got to the really high pitched "di di di". Game otherwise was fun, the track was maybe a little long considering how featureless it is, some landmarks would make doing the same lap over and over again a bit more tolerable. The way the car stuck to the wall as you added engines was a bit annoying. I understand that it's supposed to be the more you have, the worse it is but I felt like it slowed down the action too much. If you could add other cars that would be great, then it would really add to the chaos, which I think is where the fun lies in this game (aside from the sound).
Dec 9 07:50:45	76h 00m	Loot n' Scoot	♥ 1	Looting is fun, so it's a good basis for a game. I like the graphics, though some animation would be nice. The music is fine, even though it repeats quite quickly. I like how the music was situational, really adds to the atmosphere. Some way of distracting the sheriffs would be good, plus it would add to the depth of the gameplay. It wasn't clear to me that the vaults didn't work until you had all the other loot first, so that was a bit frustrating. The camera is an issue, the borders it follows the player at should be bigger, as it would often lead to you not being able to see what was ahead of you - so if you then hit a sheriff just as you could see them, if felt like a cheap loss.
Dec 11 05:04:42	45h 13m	Corruption	♥ 1	There was a good amount of content in this and the level design, for the most part, is quite good and works with the mechanics as they are introduced. Sound is a little disappointing and I'd say the graphics are good but not amazing. The combat mechanics are interesting, as the player sort of hangs when you're in a position to hit enemies multiple times. I would have made the downward attack a bit stronger against enemies as it takes more skill to hit correctly. Not having a checkpoint when you got the running ability killed this for me though. I kept getting killed on my way back out and never reached a checkpoint, so I had to keep going to get the running ability. That just became too frustrating after repeated attempts. Especially with the bouncing enemies at the end of the ledges. I know you float for a bit when you attack an enemy but where you are already at the height of your double jump, it only takes a moment of non-contact before you drop down and have to repeat the process. I'm curious to what the ending is... does it turn out you're Satan? (I watched the play-through video on your itch.io page, I was close!)
Dec 11 05:53:27	48m 45s	Poser	♥ 1	Balancing your rep among different groups can be a fun mechanic and using different outfits to do so is a cool idea. I really like that each outfit had its own mechanics; thought the football throwing idea was great, the skater controls not so much. It would be nice if there was some kind of mission you had to do to increase your rep, even if it was just a fetch quest, rather than just standing next to people for a while. The graphics were OK, it would be nice if the movement animations only played while you were actually moving. It might be nice if the level design was more interconnected too, so you could take different paths to get around. The music was good but did get repetitive quickly.
Dec 11 06:23:32	30m 05s	Enter The Labyrinth: 36 Chambers	♥ 0	The atmosphere of the game is good, even though the graphics and audio are fairly minimal. The gameplay is quite simple, so I feel it needs something to give the player some kind of agency within the world, rather than just repeated attempts until they memorise (or stumble upon) the correct path. A game like The Stanley Parable uses the narration to do this. You could do it with text instead, as recording the voice within a jam timeframe would be difficult. Otherwise, even a tally of your failures would give the player a bit more feedback and sense of investment into the game, making them want to reach the end more.
Dec 15 22:36:35	112h 13m	Sugar Crash	♥ 1	I'm playing this after I saw your request for more detailed feedback, so I'll do my best to provide that. I played this through the ich.io app. The title screen is quite ugly, specifically the text for "SUGAR", it doesn't mesh very well with the font used for "CRASH" or the buttons. I'd suggest reducing the number of colours used on the title screen overall. It's great that you included a guide on how to play. I would maybe try to explain it in fewer words, or at least break the text up into paragraphs. The "QUIT" button doesn't work for me. The game (at least for me) only had a short playtime, which meant a lot of retries - so it was annoying to have to return to the main menu each time to begin again; a quick retry option would help. The graphics are OK, they have a cute quality to them; they remind me of those play mats you would drive toy cars around on as a kid. There isn't a lot of variety in the buildings. There isn't much in the way of animation either, so the game feels very static. I think you could really commit to the cute art style and populate the town with people and buildings to match. You could also just go with it being all about sugar and fill the place with candy and that sort of thing. As is, the "POP" on the soda bottles is hard to read. Some kind of visual feedback when you get some soda would be nice, maybe a bit of screen shake when you crash too. The UI is fine but I think the "time until crash" bar is a little small and you really have to take your eye off the action to check it. Some kind of visual indicator closer to the car would help, I think. Maybe the screen could lose colours and slowly shift to greyscale as you run lower on sugar (or just the car could become grey/transparent). I didn't use the controls display much, easier just to figure it out as it changed; I can see you need to include something like this though. I liked the music, I thought it fit the game and its style well. The sound effects are very simple and there are no sound effects for the car. The main mechanic, the changing controls, is good. I like games that use the controls in interesting ways. However, it is difficult and not everyone is going to like it, as there is also an element of frustration to it. The main incentive for replaying is to better your score, so a scoreboard would be nice. However, if it were a bigger game, then some kind of objective would add to the replay value (e.g. reach this place in X seconds, Kasper's suggestions too). I see how it used the theme but it become "worse" to the same degree each time, so I don't think it nailed it 100%. If there were other disadvantages as you consumed more and more soda, I think it would use the theme better. Maybe the screen could start to jitter, a rapid heartbeat sound effect or other effects people associate with sugar highs/crashes. I tried to go as far as I could in different directions and I never hit an invisible wall. Also, the roads varied so that I couldn't just go straight forever without hitting a building, so good work with the level wrapping and design. The controls when reversing don't work like they usually would, specifically the left & right are swapped to what they should be. Sometimes a soda would spawn directly where the car was, meaning you unexpectedly swapped controls. So you may want to check that there is no collision with the car when spawning a soda. The download seems quite large for the size of the game; I'm not familiar enough with Unity to know how to reduce it though.
Dec 15 22:56:36	20m 01s	Babies with Guns	♥ 1	I had to give this a go just because of the title. It's a shame you didn't get the sound done for this as it would have really added to the game. Still, the art is really good and the humour is certainly there. I didn't love the platforming, I echo ManBeardGames's comments there. It would be nice if there was a need to toss a baby, like getting them through a small space, or to unlock something, as it is a fun mechanic (that was a weird sentence to type).
Dec 15 23:16:41	20m 05s	NoteBoy	♥ 1	Really cool idea and nicely presented. This is a fun art style and you nailed it for the most part. It's a little odd that the character is walking but nothing else moves. The sound is OK, it might be nice if the music played throughout the game (just more quietly than in the menu). The jump is weird but has already been addressed by several people, it did make this less fun than it could have been for me though. There isn't a ton of content here but the splitting mechanic really makes this interesting. A great take on the theme too.
Dec 15 23:38:18	21m 37s	Critical Mass	♥ 1	I feel like the time it takes to reach the end is just too long, as the gameplay doesn't have enough variety to it to hold my interest that long. Maybe you could include population stats about the planets you're swallowing so the player feels a bit guilty, or have a more interesting way of communicating the size of the black hole as it grows (like you did with the timeline). For example, you could say it's now the size of 100 Earths, or that its gravitational pull is as wide as our solar system. Otherwise, the gameplay just needs more to do; power-ups or some way of reducing your mass would be easy ones. The graphical representation of the timeline is fun and the graphics overall are good, though the font used doesn't fit with the space setting.
Dec 16 00:21:41	43m 23s	Antibody	♥ 1	I really like the depth idea, I have not seen that in a top-down shooter before but it really works well. I did find the graphics a bit garish but given the setting, of course there's going to be a lot of red. The UI was a bit ugly though, it at least needs a nicer font but more visually appealing "health" bars would be good as well. You could really make it look like it was all taking place under a microscope to give it a cohesive aesthetic. Also, an indicator of which depth you're in would be nice, as they do all look similar (but maybe that's supposed to be part of the challenge?). The graphics were all very simple shapes but come together with the music to create a nice mood. There is a bug in the HTML5 version that if you hold left-click too long, movement just follows the mouse instead of having to click - however, it actually feels nice to control it that way, much smoother. Overall, I really liked the depth mechanic and this held my attention for longer than I thought it might. It could use some polish though. I didn't end up winning, so I'm not sure if there is any end content that I missed.
Dec 16 00:48:23	26m 42s	Mister Maître	♥ 1	I thought this was a great jam entry; a clear idea of the game it was aiming to be, well executed. I had a lot of fun with this and I think it is a really fun take on the theme. It really nails the risk vs. reward gameplay. I was always trying to see how many glasses I could fit and being too greedy. The graphics were solid, I especially liked the different nervous looks on the waiter's face as you added more and more glasses. The sound was good, the music fit and the glasses had a good smash sound effect, which was the main thing that mattered. I guess I didn't really care much about my overall score though, so maybe some kind of leader board would encourage score chasing a bit more. I would be nice if it didn't show the tutorial graphics every time you restarted but they aren't there for long so it's only a minor nuisance.
Dec 16 01:02:40	14m 17s	Salty Business	♥ 0	Lovely looking game and the music is just a perfect fit, nails the mood for sure. The characters at the ports maybe weren't as nice visually but they had some humour to them, which was a nice surprise. The gameplay itself feels a bit under baked; the trading is very simple and there is no challenge or risk involved.
Dec 18 00:32:35	47h 29m	Good As Gold	♥ 1	The mechanic of getting heavier as you go isn't an uncommon one this jam but I think your implementation of it was really good. It even had a little story to go with it but mainly the effect of your character becoming solid gold and slowing down just worked very well; both the visuals and gameplay communicated what was happening to the player and the slower movement gives the player a real drive to avoid it. The graphics were good - quite sparse but the 3D was functional and more than just giant cubes and spheres, not bad given the time frame (I assume the models and animations were made during the jam as there is no outside credits). The music fit the setting and there were good, clear sound effects for every event. The puzzle mechanics themselves are fine, dragging could be a little smoother and using objects to set switches is fairly standard. It's a shame there is only one level, the game is quite short. Still, I enjoyed playing it while it lasted.
Dec 18 01:01:29	28m 54s	Jonny; Life of a Procrastinator	♥ 1	I think this could be an interesting premise for a game but I don't really see how it connects with the LD40 theme. I like the graphics of the bedroom and Jonny, although the pop-ups and screen graphics might be too pixelated and hurt readability. It took me a few goes to get a grasp on all the mechanics; it wasn't clear to me that I had to click to earn points. I don't mind a good clicker game but mixing it was keyboard movement felt a little strange, you probably could have had the mouse used for all actions. Also, the food items seemed to have too many disadvantages, so I ended up not eating and just going with sleep. Maybe I would have experimented with the balance a bit more but the lack of a retry option discouraged this. I think, overall, that the biggest improvement you could make would be to make the game more player-friendly; retry option, simpler control scheme, label the UI elements, etc.
Dec 18 01:55:02	53m 33s	LDAX: Ludum Dare Asset Exchange	♥ 1	An interesting (and timely) idea for a game. The graphics were good, although there is not a lot to them. The market seems far too easy to manipulate when you seem to be the only player, you can pump & dump your way to millions pretty quickly. I think this just needs more meat on its bones, e.g. have some random news events that affect the price, make it multiplayer, have different people giving predictions and you need to figure out which ones to follow, multiple coins and you have to pick the good from the trash. I realise these ideas would all take more time to implement but the game is too simple, as is. Also, Buy/Sell ALL buttons would be handy. Being able to name your coins (and the automatic shortening) was cool.
Dec 18 02:22:15	27m 13s	EA's spaceBattle	♥ 1	Lol, your game is a jerk! This was very good, you really managed to frustrate me, as a player, which made it all the more funny. A lot of jokes have been made about the EA situation but I think this did a great job of actually getting an emotional response out of the player. Good satire indeed. No sound and some spelling errors hurt the presentation a little but you can't have everything.
Dec 18 03:08:48	46m 33s	DETERMINATION	♥ 2	I haven't played Undertale, so I'm judging this as a standalone game. It's very simple; basic graphics and no sound, so I cannot give it much praise for presentation. There is no feedback when you hit enemies either. The most frustrating thing though is having no ability to retry when you die, I shouldn't have to restart the game so that I can play it again. The mechanic of your movement becoming faster and therefore more difficult to control as you level up does fit the theme well.
Dec 18 03:56:16	47m 28s	Tangram Technologies	♥ 0	I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that your favourite colour is brown. Seriously though, it's been mentioned by others that contrast/outlines would help here, as well as some feedback when pieces have been placed or placement fails. I thought the music was kind of strange and cool, no other sound effects though that I could notice. These are a classic type of puzzle and they can be fun, I enjoyed most of the levels but got stuck on "We have the technology". Apparently there was some kind of story to this, so I'd suggest having an ability to skip levels (or a hint system) so the player can get to them (this is purely for game jam purposes, people want to see all the content). One thing that did annoy me was having pre-placed pieces that were wrong. In puzzle games it seems, to me, like the standard is that pre-placed pieces are to be used as a guide, not part of the puzzle themselves. If you're going to ignore convention, be explicit about it. Otherwise, the initial "tutorial" levels were good and I enjoyed playing.
Dec 18 04:25:05	28m 49s	Pixel Cartel	♥ 1	Pretty solid top-down shooter, I liked that it included a money system, as well as a gun shop and a few quests. Decent pixel graphics, UI could use some improvement. The music was fitting and there were sound effects for most events but the guns sounded a bit lame. A clicking sound effect when you're out of ammo would be a good addition. Having to reactivate the quest when you die is a bit annoying. Otherwise, it was fun to play and I did get some Hotline Miami vibes, which is always good. It didn't make much use of the theme; I know the enemies notice you from further away but you didn't get a sense of that when playing. Maybe if the money was more important to gameplay, then the player would feel more protective of it and thus more fearful of enemies when trying to get back to the safe.
Dec 19 07:48:59	27h 23m	Sheep without Shepherd	♥ 2	I really like the idea and I think it's a great fit for the theme. The herding mechanic, in particular the responsiveness of the sheep, works very well. You are definitely engaged as a player and are driven to herd all of the sheep before time runs out. The game looks pretty good, though some animation for the dog would be nice. I like the transition to night, as it looks good and it gives a visual indicator that you are running out of time. The foxes as an additional threat are good too, as you really feel under pressure. Some way of neutralising the foxes might be a good addition if you add harder levels though. The keyboard controls I found a little frustrating, the dog controls more like a car than an animal with its wide turning circle. Seeing one of the other comments that you could use a controller, I tried that instead and found it much more intuitive to control with an analogue stick. I can't see it stated anywhere that controllers are supported, so you might wanted to publicise that fact a bit more. It's a real shame there is no sound, just a "woof" and a "bah" noise would have really added to this and even injected some humour too.
Dec 23 22:18:06	110h 29m	Super childcare assistant	♥ 0	Underlying mechanics are good and nice work with the multiplayer. Presentation and game feel need work though. Could really use a full-screen option.
Dec 23 22:43:54	25m 48s	Island Businessman	♥ 0	I enjoy clicker/incremental games, which I feel is the best fit for classifying this game and I think you could learn a lot from that genre to improve IBM. This game doesn't have a good progression system, so the player isn't getting any kind of positive feedback loop from playing. Everything thing you buy costs the same amount of effort, regardless of how long you have been playing. Productivity should have a snowball effect, i.e. the more money you have -> the more wood you can produce -> the more houses you can build -> the more money you make. The boat is a good start but it only adds a small amount to wood production and you have to click it every time, some kind of automation would be good and encourage the player to leave the game running (idle). Also, I don't see any benefit to the size of the map. I would suggest reducing it all to fit on a single screen, no WSAD movement needed. The graphics would probably look better zoomed out too.